GDIF has received £25,000 p/a from Tower Hamlets since 1997 as a contribution to the large-scale, free, outdoor events they produce each year within the borough (last year Wired Aerial Theatre's As the World Tipped at Mile End Park and the Dancing City mini-festival at Canary Wharf). Without the funding from Tower Hamlets, GDIF would have to reduce events within the borough and large-scale international productions would likely not happen.

At present the funding cut is only on the table. The Tower Hamlets Council will make a decision on the Cabinet's Medium Term Financial Plan (which proposes to reduce the Communities, Localities and Culture budget from £61,437 million in 2011-12 to 52,738 million in 2014-15) on 22 February 2012, so if you value the activies of GDIF in the borough then take a little time to write to the Mayor of Tower Hamlets, Lutfur Rahman (mayor@towerhamlets.gov.uk) to tell him why.

Sideshow is a magazine and website that promotes, records and thinks about contemporary circus.

Sideshow's current major projects include Deconstructing Circus, a series of 30 focused interviews with 30 circus artists and directors, and What is Contemporary Circus?, a five-part entry level introduction to the artform.